Reunion
by lizardcookie
Summary: I opened the door to the seventh year dormitory and found him alone, not sleeping like I wanted him to be, knowing that he needed the rest. Nope. My idiot of an ex-boyfriend was wide awake, unprotected, exhausted, and laying in the bed farthest away from the door. Not what I wanted and just as I should have predicted.


I opened the door to the seventh year dormitory and found him alone, and he wasn't sleeping like I wanted him to be, knowing that he needed the rest. Nope. My idiot of an ex-boyfriend was wide awake, alone, unprotected, exhausted, and laying in the bed farthest away from the door. Not what I wanted and just as I should have predicted.

"Ron, I promise I'll—" Harry hadn't looked towards the door until he after he started speaking, and immediately lost track of his sentence at the sight of me leaning against the doorframe. It's good to know that I was still intimidating, despite the obvious lack of sleep I'd had. I glared at him. Really, for being the great Chosen One and Boy Who Lived and all that, Harry was quite daft sometimes.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I heard myself demand. Oh, great, Ginny. Be a bitch to the wizard who just killed Voldemort and ended a war. Ten points to Gryffindor for best show of appreciation.

"Please." There was a significant plead to his voice, and he knew what was coming—my wrath, which _just_ might be equal to that of some Death Eaters. "Just… don't hate me." He sat completely up on the bed and sprawled his legs over the edge as his hands went through his hair. I took a moment to examine Harry— I could tell he'd grown a few more inches in his time away (doing Godric knows what) and his hair, always nonconforming, was thicker and longer from lack of care. His hands were blistered, scarred and scratched and his forearms were no different. From the stiff way he sat up, and I could tell that his muscles were tight and aching. He was unshaven, too, and could pull off the stubble well. This sight did not calm my anger.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here, Harry? Alone, right after everything that's happened! Have you even been to Madame Pomfrey of any of the volunteer Healers? Don't answer that, I know what you'll say- 'I'm fine' or 'Not until everyone else has been dealt with,'—and you know what, Harry? Those are damned lies. You aren't fine. You're hurt. I can see that. You're avoiding people, but you can't avoid me."

He chose this moment to look at me in the eye, those beautiful green eyes that would betray any emotion he was feeling stared into my own brown ones with defeat (how ironic considering his recent historical victory). Nonetheless, his eyes had done their magic and my temper was starting to fade. I walked closer to the bed, but not close enough to where I could easily touch him. I wanted to say what I need to before I could move anywhere near him, where I would lose focus in his embrace… If he would, you know, still have me and if I hadn't jinxed him to oblivion. I started to talk.

"This year hasn't been fun. It's been a nightmare, actually, between the torture of having to worry about you and Ron and Hermione and then having to deal with the _actual_ torture from the Carrows. And last night, you just walked into the forest, without a good bye to anyone! One minute you were there for us, and the next you were gone. And I know, I_ know,_ that I'm being selfish and I hate myself for it. I just-" Merlin, no. I felt them coming. I felt the tears and the breakdown, and I couldn't stop it. And I hated it. "-I just wanted to be there for you." I finished lamely. It was true, though. Harry had to realize how much I wanted to be included in both the war and his life. I was still standing in the middle of the dormitory, crying, but not sobbing. I could thank Merlin for that later when I regained control of myself.

I hadn't noticed Harry climb out of bed, but the next thing I knew, he placed his hand hesitantly on my cheek and, despite the anger and hurt I still felt towards him, I pressed my face into his hand. His chest was right in from of my eyes, but I didn't look up. I didn't want him to see the tears.

"Ginny." He whispered it. His voice was horse and cracking, and despicably alluring. I looked into his eyes. "Ginny, I am so sorry." I choked back a laugh that sounded like a sob. This is the exact thing about Harry that both irked me and intrigued me, the level of responsibility he took for other people's suffering. "Please." He said again. "Just… don't hate me."

I stared at him, lost for words when I realized that he was being serious. The boy, selflessly battered, bruised, and broken, only had one worry—that I despised him. As if that was even possible. "No, Harry. Don't apologize. I'm the selfish one for even suggesting that I've been the only one suffering. I know that you three were in a lot of danger and I know it must have been hard for you, too… well, I hope it was , because I hope you missed me-" I realized how ridiculous I sounded, and Harry stared at me in confusion— I made another attractive sob laugh. "Oh, you know that I just hope you thought about me, still cared about me. I know you were doing what you needed to do, and what was _noble_," I had started to sound bitter, but it was the truth, "and that it would have been impossible for me to go with you and a million other things, but Harry, I just… can't help this feeling that I'm always going to lose you. The breakup at the end of last year, what happened last night…" I had finally voiced what was really bugging me, and I grabbed his shirt collar towards me almost manically, as if he needed to understand the importance of my confession. "You died, Harry. _Died. _And it scared me to death."

He looked into my face, which must have been a pleasant experience- now not only my hair was the color of a Quaffle. And I _was_ sobbing now, reliving how I felt him walk past me into the Forest and I saw him again in Hagrid's arms. In one motion, Harry had closed the short distance between us and engulfed me into a hug as I cried into his shirt, finally feeling his arms around me and letting the effects of the deaths of the Battle to sink in— Fred, Tonks, Lupin, Colin…

It took me a few seconds to realize that Harry was crying too as his fingers ran through my hair, which I'm sure still had rubble in blood mixed in. But the weirdest thing of all is that this made me smile. Harry, who always had the worst habit of bottling up his grief and anger, was finally allowing someone else to help him. _Me_.

"Ginny," he whispered again and looked into my eyes as the brilliant green of his irises mixed with the red around them. "You have no idea what it's been like since the funeral. Even over the summer, all I wanted was to go back to you and enjoy life for the hell of it because, let's be honest, I rarely ever do. But you, Ginny, always made me. You just affect me like that, I guess." His lips inched upwards in a tiny, hopeful smile. "This year has been hell between worrying about you and Ron and Hermione and your family or whoever else I loved. And I promise that I'll tell you everything that happened this year, _everything_… Of course,'  
he chuckled almost nervously, "if you could take me back. I want to be with you, Ginny. You won't lose me again. I promise. I won't let it happen."

I smiled and looked up at Harry, who had indeed benefitted quite nicely from those inches he grew during his adventure. Happiness started to become much more achievable, and I even had it in me to make a joke.

"I'll take that offer, though I don't remember the first go-round of us working out too well."

"Well," smirked Harry, catching my tone. "I think I know a way to solve that."

"Oh, which is what, exactly?"

He had leaned down to close the distance between our faces and I eagerly stood on tiptoe to help him. "I'll never break up with you again." His lips hovered over mine, but instead of kissing me, his lips moved to my ear to whisper one word.

"Ever."

"Okay," was all I was able to breathe out before our lips met, _finally, _and we kissed hesitantly for a moment before both of us tried to make up for lost time. I pressed my hand against his chest over his rapidly beating heart when a sound escaped Harry's lips. Unfortunately for me, it wasn't the sound of pleasure, but of pain.

I immediately pulled apart from Harry and he looked at me, as if ready to explain himself.

"No, really, I'm fine, it—"

"You are not fine, you prat!" I had already begun unbuttoning his shirt to reveal his chest, and nearly wanted to slap him at the sight of it- which of course would have just been cruel. His chest was just like the rest of his body, only multiplied in cuts and bruises. There were burns that had been treated with something but not completely healed, a curious egg-shaped burn where a necklace would have fallen, and cuts where debris and curses had hit him. What made his chest worse, much worse than everything else, was the bruise the size of a saucer over his heart. I gasped.

"Is that where-?"

Harry nodded slowly as I unbuttoned the rest of his shirt in order to take in the damage, and I worked hard to steady both my pain at his injury and my anger at his stupidity.

"Hospital Wing." I said in a voice that terrifyingly resembled my mother's. "Now."

"Ginny," he whined in an innocent way as he bent his knees to become eye level with me. "We were in the middle of something."

I glared at him in the best way possible. "Put on your shirt so that I can march you down to the Wing and_ not _have every girl try to get to you, because frankly that's hard enough when you're clothed and clean shaven." Harry sighed and started to button his shirt under my gaze.

"Don't worry," I said, taking his hand and walking towards the door out the dormitory. "I'll have plenty of time to rip it off properly later."


End file.
